Seattle Woman Sentenced To Five Years Prison For Running A Web of Marijuana Grows

MAR 26 -- (Seattle, WA) – DEA Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Arnold R. Moorin and the United States Attorney for the Western District of Washington, Jeffrey Sullivan, announced that Thuy Thi Ngoc Nguyen of Seattle, Washington was sentenced in U.S District Court to 60 months in prison for Conspiracy to Manufacture Marijuana.

According to court records, in May 2007, law enforcement initiated an investigation on a number of marijuana grow houses related to Nguyen and her co-conspirators. On July 2, 2007, Everett Police responded to a double homicide at a home where a man and woman had been shot execution style in the midst of one of these marijuana grows. Following the murders, numerous search warrants were executed on all of the grow houses, linking more than 2,000 marijuana plants to Nguyen. Everett Police later arrested two men for the murders. One of them told police that they had known about the marijuana grow in the residence and believed there was $40,000 to $80,000 there. The men killed the couple in the marijuana grow, as part of the robbery.

In asking for a significant sentence, Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Lisca Borichewski told the court that the murdered couple had been recruited from the east coast and Nguyen provided them housing and instructed them on how to cultivate and harvest the marijuana at her grow locations. AUSA Borichewski noted that these marijuana grows pose a danger to the community as they “are in residential neighborhoods with families and children walking down the street.” Nguyen knew the danger of the grows and had obtained two firearms in the months before the couple was murdered.

At sentencing, U.S District Court Judge John C. Coughenour cited the murders and the danger the grow operations posed to the community.

This was an Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) investigation, providing supplemental federal funding to the federal and state agencies involved. The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, King County Sheriff’s Department, Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force and the Everett Police Department.